Sunday, June 22, 2008

Early in season 4, Miles Strom went into a black woman's house to chat up a ghost. On the stairway wall was a picture of a young black boy -- many speculared it was the young Mr. Eko. But it wasn't. I asked him.

Yesterday my wife and I were at a grocery store in Mira Loma, California, and I saw this kid who looked so familiar. I knew I knew him from somewhere. Maybe a former student or something? But then -- WHAM! -- it hit me. This was the young Mr. Eko! Or at least he looked exactly like him.

Now I am overly sensitive when it comes to any kind of racist claim, so the last thing I wanted to do was approach him and ask "hey, you're young Eko, huh?" cuz of the whole you-must-think-all-black-people-look-alike thing. But my wife was smarter and generally less concerned about that sort of thing than I am, so she walked up to him and asked him, "excuse me, have you been on TV?

He smiled shyly and said yes.

"Were you on Lost?"

"Yes."

And we spoke to him for a few minutes. Nice kid. His name is Kola (officially Kolawole Obileye, Jr. ). He just bought a new house near the area. He is very busy with school -- only did Lost as a fun little thing to do -- doesn't really even follow the show much. When I told him that we hoped to see him again on the show, he smiled and said "I'm dead now." But with Lost, you never know.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

I guess it’s time I write this review. I’ve been sitting on it for two days now. Maybe I have put it off because I just don’t want the season to be officially over. Or maybe it’s because I was so disappointed by the finale.

Yes, it’s more about the disappointment. So let’s start there. Do you want to know what I hated the most about the ending of season four? Sloppy writing. Here’s what I mean:

Someone PLEASE explain to me why Keamy wired the freighter with all those explosives and his dead-man’s-trigger. Seriously. Why? Did he really think that Ben would give a rat’s tail about those “innocent” people on the freighter who have encroached on his hidden island for the sole purpose of capturing him and taking him to Widmore? I can see why Keamy would do it to maybe get Lapidus to fly him safely back to the island – or maybe if Keamy had wired the explosives to the orchid station or some other important part of the island. But he had already seen Ben let his own daughter die rather than surrender -- what kind of “life insurance” is boatload of strangers who aren’t anything to Ben anyway? Keamy is not that dumb. Stupid, sloppy writing. The ONLY reason Keamy wired those explosives was because the writers needed the freighter to explode. The writers needed that narrative beat. Contrivance. And that simply sucks.

You know what else I didn’t like? I didn’t like that Jack was the one who told the O6 that they needed to lie to protect the people on the island and they just went along with it. Why? How does that really protect the people on the island? And since when has Jack ever believed or followed what Locke has told him to do? I understand them covering their own collective butts – if the guy behind the hoax sees them contradicting his story, they will be in danger. But the people on the island? No, I don’t buy it. More weak writing. Cashing emotional checks early in the season without enough cash in the account, that’s what this was.

I also don’t like that Ben appears to be “off the island” like the rest of them. I am not convinced that he really is, by the way. Sure, he told Locke that the person who moves the island can’t come back, but Ben doesn’t always tell the whole truth, does he? And when did he visit Widmore anyway? After he moved the island, or before? It would make a big difference in the dialogue they shared if Ben really couldn’t get back to the island when he spoke with Widmore.

So I’ll spend some time over the long break ahead reconfiguring my whole black-pieces vs. white-pieces Ben vs. The Universe theory that I have posted elsewhere. I still am clinging to the idea that Ben is trying to outmaneuver the Universe – and perhaps this moving the island wasn’t as much about moving the island as it was the Universe’s way of getting Ben off of it. But I don’t know. I am a huge fan of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and I continue to believe that they have a master plan, but I must admit their armor took a few chinks with this finale for me. How much worse would it have been if they would have only had one hour to fit it all in, like they originally imagined. Yikers!

Of course there are things I liked about the finale as well, but I’ll save that post for another day. We’ve got a long long wait ahead.